


Embers

by mogwai_do



Series: Embers [1]
Category: Highlander: The Series, The X-Files
Genre: Episode: s08e021 Existence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-10
Updated: 2013-02-10
Packaged: 2017-11-28 21:03:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/678863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mogwai_do/pseuds/mogwai_do
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some fires are harder to extinguish than others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Embers

His lungs burned with the need to breathe, but he couldn't remember how, though surely he had known once. He didn't know how long he'd been here either except that it had been too long. He knew how he'd got here though and every half-remembered myth of his childhood, every exhortation from a church he'd ignored, all paled to insignificance beside the truth. He pushed at the darkness that fell between him and his senses in thick, suffocating folds. He couldn't breathe.

He felt rather than saw the faint pinprick of light piercing the black veil around him and he lunged for it in desperation. Scrabbling madly in his need to reach it before the darkness smothered even the memory of feeling. He could feel the strain of his reach and wondered how that could be when he felt nothing else. It was like the very fabric of his soul was stretching thin, memories separating slowly as the tension increased. He was going to be torn apart to scatter and dissolve in the darkness like so much confetti, yet he had to keep straining for that light, not questioning why. Starlight or corpselight, either had to be better than this all-encompassing, unfeeling black.

Something in him screamed in pain and terror as he pushed beyond his own limits, feeling himself come apart even as he reached the light. It was only the barest of touches, but like many a moth, he burned for it.

Alex Krycek gasped a desperate lungful of air, his body convulsing with the suddenness of it. His heart was speeding, his sluggish blood now racing with it, like he'd outrun death itself. Beneath his skin every nerve itched and burned with the return flood of stimuli. His eyes were open, but at this moment sight made no sense. Darkness and jagged light burned his retinas, yet he couldn't bear to close his eyes and lose what little he saw. He lay trembling, fierce terror surging through him, contradictory information making him wonder if terror was the only sanity left to him.

"Give it a few minutes, Alex. It gets better."

The low tones seemed to resonate right through him, but it took a long time for the words to make sense. His name was the one thing he latched onto and with it came recognition. A familiar voice, perhaps the one, truly welcome sound in his life, past, present and future. If _he_ was here then things were... if not alright, then at least under control. He could rely on that, he could cope.

The panicked terror began to recede and he was aware of his heart slowly steadying its beat as his breathing evened out. The dance of light and dark became more clearly defined to his eyes as the burning beneath his skin settled into a warm tingle.

Alex blinked and felt a hand come to rest on his chest, its weight strangely reassuring. With slow deliberation he turned his head and the abstract gave way to concrete and recognisable reality. Methos. The Immortal sat cross-legged at his side, wreathed in slow-moving coils of lightning, like some exotic dancer and her snake. If Methos ever got a snake he'd probably call it Caspian and sic it on burglars. The re-emergence of his own warped humour caught him off guard, but he was too tired to react. His throat felt sandpapered, but he tried to form the words anyway.

"Not... dead?"

Methos shook his head with an almost rueful smile and Alex watched in bemusement as Methos' Quickening folded itself back into the deceptively ordinary frame, like those puzzles that shouldn't fit, but somehow did. He tried to raise his hand, but was simply too exhausted to do more than twitch a finger. He tried to speak again, but only managed a croak. Then Methos loomed close, raising Alex's shoulders, stuffing pillows behind him to prop him up, and reaching for a tall glass of water on the bedside table. Alex accepted the ministrations without a murmur and just breathed in his lover's familiar scent, letting it permeate his consciousness.

The water was icy cold when it touched his lips and it sent a shiver through him, but it felt good all the same - real. He drained half the glass before it was removed and he found himself looking into concerned, but calm, hazel eyes.

"Better?"

Alex couldn't help the wry smile that came to his lips, "Better than dead? Oh yeah."

Methos snorted before settling back, straddling Alex's thighs. The proximity felt better than the water had.

"I'm really hoping this wasn't the Plan B you had in mind when you called, Alex." Methos' voice was unusually serious, but given the circumstances Alex was hardly surprised. He let his head tip back onto the pillows, remembering how everything had gone so badly wrong so quickly. How he'd been forced to call in his last resort, the one person he knew he could rely on, knowing that Methos might not be able to get from Paris in time. And he hadn't - not in time to save Alex from the bullet he had spent the last decade dodging.

He should have known better, had a little more faith, though he wasn't sure how he could have anticipated this one. Despite his protestations otherwise, Methos _was_ older and wiser and, more importantly, he had a store of knowledge that spanned millennia, morality, belief and possibility.

"Not exactly what I had in mind," Alex replied after a moment, "But you won't hear any complaints."

Methos smiled then and leaned forward to place a light kiss on Alex's lips, "Good."

Long fingers threaded through his, but Alex didn't take his eyes from his lover's face. Even he couldn't read Methos with complete accuracy, but he could see the relief. Part of him wanted to ask, part of him really didn't want to know, the rest of him decided now was as good a time as any to exercise his faith in Methos' care and let him decide.

"You know," Methos began almost conversationally, "the last person I did this for was my fifth wife."

"I'm not marrying you," Alex muttered and received a broad grin in return that had more than a little relief in it.

"A good night's sleep and you should feel like a new man," Methos pronounced easily and with an authority Alex was in no position to contradict.

Alex raised an eyebrow, "Oh? Who?"

Methos appeared to think about that for a moment. "I think the ID I've got stashed here is for a Jonathan Daniels - you don't mind being a Jonathan do you?"

Alex shrugged in an attempt to convey that choice of name was a _long_ way down his list of priorities right now.

Methos smiled, "Excellent," and he pulled the pillow from behind Alex's head. Still too weak to stop himself, Alex flopped back onto the bed, more relieved than he was prepared to admit when Methos followed him down. The long, lean body settled comfortably against his in a constant reminder of his reality, their hands still clasped over Alex's chest. He would have nightmares of that lightless, sense-less place, but he'd had nightmares before and they were infinitely preferable to the alternative.

His perception of time was still a little skewed, but it must have been the best part of an hour before the too-clear memory of that place drove him to break the silence. He knew Methos wasn't sleeping anyway.

"You were never Death for the people you killed, were you?" he phrased it as a question, but Alex knew they could both hear the conviction in his tone.

"Later I was," Methos replied softly, "But no, not at first."

Alex had nothing more to say to that; it was all he needed to know. The Quickening was power, but power was nothing if it was not used. It sometimes amazed Alex that so many Immortals viewed Quickenings as an abstract concept, nothing more than a means of keeping score in their eternal Game, and never once did they wonder what that power was _for_. Methos had wondered, had experimented, had found out. Alex squirmed a little against his lover as if he could somehow achieve greater contact along the length of their bodies. The uncharacteristic dependence didn't bother him, after all, these were exceptional circumstances and besides there were worse fates, he knew.

Methos' soft voice surprised him from his reverie, the distracted, not-quite casual tone snagging Alex's attention. "You know, you can put a fire out pretty easily, but the coals will still glow - for a little while anyway. Embers can be re-kindled with care and encouragement - if there's enough of a spark left." Methos propped himself up on one elbow so Alex could see his face, "If the flight had been delayed, I would have been too late."

Alex didn't need to ask what for.

Summoning the small store of energy he had managed to accumulate, Alex raised his head enough to brush his lips over Methos', hoping that the light touch would convey all he was feeling - gratitude, relief, love and trust. "I can't promise it won't happen again," he said softly, "but I'll try to hold on till you get there."

"I'd appreciate that," Methos replied with simple solemnity before tucking himself back against Alex's side, no suggestion of what Alex might owe him, no hint that he would not do it again as many times as it might prove necessary. For someone who lived by words, it was his actions that best defined the Eldest Immortal.

Alex stared up at the ceiling for a few long minutes listening to his lover's breathing, aware that Methos was still awake, that his lover would not sleep tonight, but stand guard over Alex instead. The warmth of the Immortal's body was even more of a comfort than it had been before, now that he knew the fire that lay beneath that innocuous surface. As he finally allowed his eyes to close, Alex remained aware of it as he had never been before and its banked heat soothed him into the first truly restful slumber he had had in months.

 

FIN


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